The Week in Bentos: October 15-19, 2012

Monday

Monday morning we were running late and I really, really wanted Wyatt to eat school lunch so I didn’t have to take the time to put a lunch together. When I asked if he’d like school lunch though, he whined and moaned about what the school was serving and begged me to make him a bento. I took pity on him and threw together a really basic lunch in our LunchBots Trio: Scrabble Cheez-its, apple chunks, the last of the strawberries, pretzel sticks and deli turkey roll-ups.

So guess what happened? He didn’t realize that I’d packed a bento (despite me stopping him and putting the lunch box in his backpack while it was on his back) so he ate school lunch. Grrrrr….

I’m frequently asked if everything mixes together in the box when the kids are carrying them to school so I decided this was a good opportunity to show you what one of our bento boxes looks like when the kids sit down to eat:

This lunch traveled to and from school in the usual manner and it doesn’t look any different than it did when it left the house. Some of the crackers shifted around, but otherwise I can’t really tell a difference. Granted, this is a pretty simple lunch, and this box has a lot of built in dividers, but this is pretty typical for a bento lunch post-transport.

Tuesday

Tuesday I decided to get a little Halloween-y again. Augie’s lunch was packed in our PlanetBox. He had a small dish of applesauce, a few cucumber slices, a hotdog that I cut into chunks (with a spider ring for creepiness), garlic naan that I cut into ghost shapes and added some google eyes to and some strawberries.

Wyatt vetoed google eys on his ghosts because they were “kinda goofy, Mom”, so I tried to draw a ghost face on one with food-safe markers but I did a terrible job. Since Wyatt is a breadlover, he got his scraps under the ghosts, as well as Augie’s. He also had applesauce, turkey roll-ups, and strawberries (including one stabbed with a cookie knife).

Wednesday

We were rushed on Wednesday morning because we all overslept! In fact we were so late that I didn’t have time to photograph the kids’ lunches. That hasn’t happened in a while. I’m not sure what they had. I’m not even sure I packed them lunches! Ha ha!

(I probably packed them lunches.)

Thursday

Thursday I packed Augie a lunch in our new bento box (more on that in a minute): mini wheat crackers, turkey meatballs with candy eyes on them, sugar snap peas (they’re standing on end), grapes and an apple monster that I made by cutting two chunks off an apple, then cutting one edge of each chunk into a jagged line and gluing on some more google eyes with a small dab of gel icing. I was super happy with this lunch and I gave myself a lot of pats on the back when I finished. It was filled with healthy foods that Augie loves, it came together quickly and I thought it looked really cute for something that required so little effort. Look at me! The Bento Queen!

And then, when Augie came home I opened his lunch box to clean it out and found this:

Good job, Augie! This was the perfect way to bring Mommy back down to earth and keep me from getting too full of myself. The only things he ate were the grapes and he didn’t even eat all of those! And he picked off the adorable googly eyes and flicked them to the side in disdain! When I asked why he didn’t eat his lunch he told me it was “very yucky”.

And that, my friends, is just how it goes some days. No matter how much thought you put into a lunch, there are times when kids just won’t eat them.

OK, so the last thing I wanted to show you about this lunch was the box it was packed in. I purchased this double-decker bus bento box from All Things for Sale using my affiliate revenue (thanks to everyone who’s purchased using my links!) and I’m completely in love with its cuteness! There are a couple of things that make it fun. It’s nicely decorated, of course, but it’s also interesting because it’s long and thin and because one section is deeper than the other. Mostly I just love that bus decoration though.

All right — let’s move along to Wyatt’s lunch. He had plain old apple chunks, meatballs (one of them stabbed with a cookie knife and bleeding ketchup blood), Snak King Halloween chips, black bean dip, and grapes that I skewered onto an eyeball pick. For what it’s worth, he ate his entire lunch.

Friday

Today, I toned Augie’s lunch down a bit in hopes that he’d eat more of it. He had figs from our tree, a pb&j cut into a kitty shape, cucumbers and carrot sticks. I separated the sandwich from the cukes with a little animal food divider so it wouldn’t get soggy. This lunch was packed in a single layer of our monbento box.

Wyatt’s lunch was super boring: blackberry jam sandwich, pretzels and grapes. Yawn. I bet he eats every bite of it though. I packed this one in an Easy Lunchbox.

Is there any way to preserve the apples once you cut them. I found that the are pretty brown by lunchtime:(

http://www.wendolonia.com/blog wcopley

Yes! I’ve actually been playing around with different techniques lately and I have a few suggestions: dip apples in pineapple juice, or a bowl of water with a little lemon squirted into it or a crushed up vitamin C tablet mixed in. I also tried Fruit Fresh for the first time when I packed the apples for Thursday’s lunch and it worked GREAT.

OMGosh! I am loving the added touch of the cookie knifes! Especially the one in the meatball! AWESOME!!

http://www.facebook.com/jenn.christ.73 Jenn Christ

Love the lunches! I wanted to get the sugar knives for bento but worries the school wouldn’t like it lol

Alex

Where do you purchase the Snak King Fright Bite Halloween chips? Thanks!

http://www.wendolonia.com/blog wcopley

Hi Alex — I stumbled upon the Halloween chips at a small SF Bay Area chain of grocery stores called Andronico’s. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find an online source for them. I did see some Tostito’s chips in the same colors but without the fancy shapes at our regular grocery store. That might be a good substitute if you can’t get your hands on the Snak King ones. Good luck!

http://www.wendolonia.com/blog wcopley

I worry about that too, Jenn!! I decided to risk it and so far I haven’t heard anything.

http://twitter.com/GlorysMischief Glory’s Mischief

Your photos are always so beautiful. I love the bus box and how you used it. I have a long 2 level box, I should use it more often.